This is a patchwork quit that was made for me by a very special lady who now quilts, sews, bedazzles everything, and likely plays cards in Heaven. She made one for everyone she loved. I love this quilt, and many days I find refuge under it from cold, exhaustion or just the weight of what the day has supplied. It is warm and insulating, and when blanketed in it, I feel safe, secure, and like I am reminiscing with happy places, and some sad places of years gone by.

I was laying under this quilt with Macey last night, as she was telling me a story. A story that was a piece of her, and letting it go set a little part of her heart free. As she talked I began noticing each distinct square of the quilt. They are all individual. Not one is the exact same. Some may resemble, but each one has it’s own unique character. Each square, if it could talk, I imagine would tell a story.

People are a lot like patchwork quilts.  Everyone has a story.  Some very tragic, some triumphant, many perpetually present.  No two people’s stories are exactly identical, and no two people come through a story with the same experience to tell.  We all reflect an individual character that like a patchwork quilt was carefully handpicked, each and every part, and delicately sewn together to make up who we are.  Those parts of us, along with the roads we travel in life make up our stories, our own unique quilts.  Our stories, like patchwork quilts, are meant to be shared, and given away for the benefit of others.  It is in their revealing that we not only give, but gain comfort,  protection, freedom, connection, healing and friendship.  2 Corinthians 1:4 ~He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.

It is the painful stories, the ones that scar our souls, that are often kept hidden under all the make shift patchwork quilts we can acquire.  The detriment of this is that it is those very stories, the ones we want to hide, that possess just as much potential, if not more, than the ones we are eager to tell.  The real tragedy is not bound to the story itself, but the concealing of it, which leaves us hostage to its control.

Our lives are a series of stories, that if we cut apart and sewed together, would make a beautiful patchwork quilt.  Some squares would be prettier than others, but they would all be necessary to complete the quilt.  One thing is for sure, each square of our quilt embodies a valuable story full of precious life lessons.  Those stories, like patchwork quilts, were not meant to be hidden away in dark places where they become collectors of dust, rendered useless by the dark room they inhabit.  They were intended for connecting in order to create something beautiful.

In setting our stories free, we set ourselves free.  Even our darkest experiences manifest beams of light waiting to be turned into, and told as a testimony.  All darkness is impenetrable by light.  It is only the presence of light that makes it possible to visualize the beauty that the darkness conceals.

Courage is sometimes having the strength to let your light shine through darkness, and tell your truth so to create community with others and healing communion with your soul.  It is there in that community and communion that we can begin to let our lights shine, and sew our patchwork quilts free in order that they may tell the tale of our beautifully, broken journey.  A journey that holds so much pain and poise, graces and grievances, wins and losses.

Like a lighthouse on a lonely, battered island, hidden by the fog and rain of a heavy storm, our stories are persistently lit, and beckoning us toward the light.  No one lights a lamp, and then hides it or puts it under a basket.  Instead a lamp is placed on a stand, where its light can be seen by all who enter the house.~Luke 11:33   You don’t have to share it with the world, but share it with your people-your safe community. It will be told one way or another, by healthy or unhealthy means, so set yourself free.